


Dream of flying

by quandong_crumble



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Character Study, Flying, Implied Relationships, Introspection, M/M, under 1000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 20:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2595371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quandong_crumble/pseuds/quandong_crumble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>When Jim was a kid, when he was still Jimmy or Jamie or occasionally James, he dreamed of flying by stretching out his arms and jumping, and never coming down.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream of flying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [not_applicable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_applicable/gifts).



> This is a 560 word love letter to Rhodey's dreams of flight.
> 
> _If you think you've seen this before, you probably saw it on tumblr when it was originally posted in December '13. I'm moving some of my longer/better tumblr fics to AO3._

When Jim was a kid, when he was still Jimmy or Jamie or occasionally James, he dreamed of flying by stretching out his arms and jumping, and never coming down. He dreamed of weaving through trees, dodging power lines and television aerials, of chasing pigeons along rooftops. He flew with Peter Pan, with Superman. And in his waking hours he tied a towel around his shoulders like a cape and zoomed around the kitchen with his arms outstretched, but it was never as good and flying in dreams.

When Jim was a teenager, when he was Jim to everyone except his mom, and Rhodey to some of the kids at school, he daydreamed of jets, of helicopters and of rocket boots. He sketched rocket packs in his notebook margins and devoured science fiction like he did hamburgers. At night, though, he dreamed of growing feathers and wicked talons and taking to the air as a hawk or an owl. He soared, small and silent, seeing how tiny the world was from up above. He dreamed of steep dives, of snatched prey, and of cool night air and when he woke in the early morning sometimes he would get up and go for a run in streets still lit with orange sodium glow just to feel the cool air rushing against his skin.

When Jim was a young man, when he was almost always Rhodey but sometimes he was platypus and buttercup or whatever other ridiculous name Tony came up with, he dreamed of jets, of helicopters, of bombers and military drills. He ran military exercises while awake and repeated them asleep, and his subconscious replaced targets with the monsters of his childhood. During the day he learned the value of team, of unit, uniform and solidarity, but when he flew at night over the fields of his mind, he flew alone.

At some point flying became less of a dream and more of a mundane reality, and dreams were filled less with the roar of engines and more with the scratch of pen on paper as he rushed to file endless piles of paperwork before the clock ran out. His dreams forgot the fearless exuberance of youth and more and more he dreamed of fear. Fear of falling, fear of dying, fear of losing. Fear of the world finding out the secrets he and Tony hid behind the mask of close friendship. Fear of failure.

When Jim was closer to middle age than he liked to admit, when he was lieutenant-colonel and sir nearly as often as he had a name, he flew into the sky in a shiny suit of armour and had to bite his tongue hard to remind himself he wasn’t dreaming. This was the kind of flying that the imagination craves, and though he couldn’t feel the cold night air on his face he could hear the rush of the repulsors and see the dizzying whirl of the stars above. This was the closer than he’d ever thought he’d come to the rocket boots he daydreamed about in his adolescence, and his mind still boggled that Tony, _his_  Tony, had made this possible. At night, curled around a wiry engineer, he dreamed of flying again like in childhood, arms outstretched and the wind on his face, Tony’s hand clasped tightly in his.


End file.
